Just saw this piece from the NYT today that reports on the new research of Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa that analyzes the World Values Survey data and concludes that liberal democracies are in danger in the US and beyond: www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/americas/western-liberal-democracy.html. The new work shows plunging support for democracy in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Sweden and it is forthcoming in the January issue of the Journal of Democracy.

Their earlier paper (from which I excerpted the first table in my earlier post) can be found here: http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Foa%26Mounk-27-3.pdf. It’s well worth the (depressing) read. Both their work and mine point in the same direction – toward the conclusion that once-stable democracies are in danger of coming unglued first through erosion of public support (Mounk and Foa) and then through the election of anti-constitutional populists by fed-up voters who support these leaders as they break the constitutions they inherited (me).

This is a post from Kim Lane Scheppele, at Princeton University, which is chillingly accurate, as Kim usually is, and which I am re-posting with her permission from the lawcourt and conlawprof listservs:

While we’re on the subject of learning a lot from regimes that have been in this difficult place before, I recommend this powerful piece by Turkuler Isiksel, assistant professor of political theory at Columbia (and former LAPA fellow at Princeton): https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/trump-victory-regime-change-lessons-autocrats-erdogan-putin . She watched Turkey fall under the control of a populist autocrat who won democratic elections and sees some of the same danger signals in the US. A summary:

Confidence in the exceptional resilience of American democracy is particularly misplaced in the face of today’s illiberal populist movements, whose leaders are constantly learning from each other. Trump has a wide variety of tried and tested techniques on which to draw; already, he has vowed to take pages out of Putin’s playbook. Defenders of liberal democracy, too, must learn from each other’s victories and defeats. Below are some hard-earned lessons from countries that have been overrun by the contemporary wave of illiberal democracy. They could be essential for preserving the American republic in the dark years to come.

I just came back from Chile, where I gave some lectures on the creeping advance of illiberal constitutionalism around the world. People there asked me how Trump could have been elected in the US, and I showed them this data: Nearly one quarter of young Americans no longer believe in democracy and since 9/11, faith in the way America is governed has plunged to all-time lows (raised slightly in election years when Obama was elected, but then plunging back again):

[Her first chart, which I cannot copy here, from the World Values Survey, shows older Americans very supportive of our system of government but dissatisfaction rising among younger age groups at twice the rate here as in Europe. Her second chart, from Gallup, shows dissatisfaction rising and from 1972-2013.l

These are danger signals that should have alerted us earlier to the possibilities of Trump. I might add that very similar danger signals appeared before the election of other populist autocrats of both left and right: Putin, Erdogan, Orbán, Kaczynski, Correa, Chavez.

There’s a clear pattern here. First people lose faith in the system. Then they vote to break it. And when the new leader decides to trash the constitutional system, he is cheered on by those who want change at any price. When people wake up to the damage done, it is too late because their constitutional system has been captured.

What is striking about the new autocrats is how legal they are and how they borrow the worst practices from the best countries to shut down the democratic opposition. For example, Russia’s notorious NGO law that requires all NGOs to report foreign support and register as foreign agents is modeled on the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of the US. ( See the Venice Commission expert report on the Russian NGO law including an analysis of the Russian government’s claim that it was copying FARA at p. 9-10: http://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-AD(2014)025-e .) After Hungary lowered the judicial retirement age to get rid of the top tier of judges in 2012 so they could replace them with appointees of their own political flavor, Mohamed Morsi did the same in Egypt. How many of us have argued for fixed terms of judges or fixed judicial retirement ages in the US? Imagine if those proposals were to gain ground as a political movement just now? Several populist autocrats in Latin America have added a line-item veto to their powers, which effectively neutralizes parliamentary compromises, erases any hard-won traces of parliamentary opposition, and strengthens the dictatorial powers of the president. But don’t some American reformers still want the line-item veto – even now? Just see how that works in Latin America, and be very afraid. In short, many proposals to reform the “broken” American system have already been used by populist autocrats to consolidate their power through constitutional capture, and we should be very wary of the particular proposals that will be made by a president-elect who has already proposed to govern outside the Constitution as we know it.

If you think constitutional capture can’t happen in the US, then you didn’t know how unlikely autocracy seemed in these other countries before it occurred. But as Jack Goldsmith has recently argued: libertarian panic may be the best weapon we have against awful things to come: https://lawfareblog.com/libertarian-panic-unlawful-action-and-trump-presidency because it at least means we are paying close attention.

I don’t usually tell stories, but sometimes an ancient story seems to have contemporary relevance.

We know the character I’m thinking about as DON Juan. In Italian it is DON Giovanni, the title character of a Mozart opera. Don is an honorific title. Like some people with whom we share this world, DON Giovanni is a braggart. Leporello, his servant sings “Mille et tres” – in English, “a thousand and three.” Leporello counts the women all over Europe that DON Giovanni has dishonored – six hundred and forty in Italy alone; two hundred thirty-one in Germany; a hundred in France; ninety-one more in Turkey. And in Spain, oh in Spain already one thousand and three. Leporello adds that these girls came from all ranks of society – girls from the city and the country, maidservants, and noble women, members of the aristocracy. DON Giovanni uses different lines for women of every hair color, shape and weight.

The first half of the opera is light-hearted. Peasants dance in preparation for the wedding of Zerlina and Masetto. But DON Giovanni sends Masetto off with a combination of claims that everything will be fine because he, the DON, is a nobleman, plus thinly veiled threats with his sword. Then the DON dangles enticements before Zerlina. Zerlina sings “I would, but I would not.” I remember seeing a young couple sing that duet on the lawn at Chautauqua – I can no longer remember their names but never forget how well that Zerlina sang, coquettish but embarrassed at her own desire, completely understanding Zerlina’s predicament. Zerlina knew that this nobleman might be insincere, merely to dishonor her, but finds herself unable to resist. That first Act ends with others, who know and resent the DON’s tricks, rescuing Zerlina. DON Giovanni comments that the Devil is playing with him.

The second half of the opera is quite different. DON Giovanni has escaped those angry with him and taken refuge in a graveyard near the statue of the character known in italian as il Commendatore, commemorating a man killed by DON Giovanni, and the father of one of the noblewomen who has rescued Zerlina. An inscription at the base of the statue demands vengeance. There in the graveyard, the statue speaks, warning DON Giovanni he is near the end. Cool and fearless, DON Giovanni invites him to dinner. Sure enough, il Commendatore appears at dinner as a white shrouded statue – we could call him a ghost – demanding repentence. DON Giovanni refuses to repent, claiming he fears nothing. They scream at each other, “Repent;” “Never;” “Repent;” “Never.” Like the Donald we have to live with, the DON that was Giovanni [quotes] “loved” women too much to regret dishonoring them.

Mozart, often thought of as writing music that ranges from merely pretty to soaringly beautiful, grabs musical lightning from the Lord and hurls it at DON Giovanni, pulling him down and taking him to Hell.

Mozart’s opera ends with the characters in chorus making clear that is exactly where the DON belongs.

I walked by a lovely cathedral in Milwaukee and then another of the same faith one block away. Then I noticed someone I knew and asked her what gives. She pointed out that the two cathedrals were built by people divided by their ethnic groups. How far have we traveled! These days we happily rub shoulders with people from all different backgrounds.

The melting pot started with the beginnings of our country. The Frenchman Hector St. John de Crevecouer wrote in 1782 that immigrants wanted to become Americanized and “melted” into Americans. In a 1909 novel, Israel Zangwill wrote “Into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.” And indeed the melting pot is how we created America and Americans. We are all products of that pot. It was the melting pot that made this a great country, rising above the petty jealousies and foolish fights of the Old World.

We invented the public school as the common school where we all went, mixed, learned and made friends. We work together, laugh together and we’ve made America great together. We’ve made America great together because all our ancestors have contributed to the extent of their skills, character and sometimes their genius. We’ve benefitted from everyone.

And we’re safer because of it.

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries, Americans focused on Americanizing the hordes of immigrants arriving on our shores. What did they do? They used the common public schools. And the corporations and the military played a part. They had soldiers and workers who didn’t speak the same language, share the same customs or celebrate the same holidays. Greeks celebrated Christmas but they did it weeks later which created problems for the factories. Business and the military created Americanization classes and some held a ceremony with a huge pot – the immigrants walked in on one side. On the other, out came the Americans!

The military tried separate units by language but by World War I they put people together in the same tents. Soldiers coming home from the two world wars fixed each other up with their sisters and cousins. Suddenly the melting pot went national.

Many of us fought for integrated schools because we know it makes America stronger, makes our kids stronger and safer. We still fight for integrated schools and communities. But we have just lived through a campaign about divisions, denigrating people for where they came from and how they pray. We have spent eight years watching the most vicious refusal to cooperate with one of the most decent men to occupy the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. because he had an African father.

With Thanksgiving in a couple of days it’s worth stopping to remember that the melting pot is well worth a celebration, well worth giving thanks for, for ourselves and for our country. And it’s worth stirring too.

I feel like I’m in mourning. The presidency has been taken by a con man and we all deserve better – those he’s duped as well as the rest of us.

Trump was “elected” by an “electoral college” system designed in the 18th century to protect slaveowners by augmenting their votes with 3/5 of their slaves.

He was “elected” by a Court unwilling to protect the voting rights of all American citizens.

As in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but George Bush became President, the 2016 popular vote went to Mrs. Clinton. President Bush proceeded to make colossal mistakes in foreign affairs for which this country will spend a century paying.

Trump was elected with the votes of people who had suffered financially over the past two decades – but they voted for the very people who refused to lift a finger to provide jobs, people who don’t believe government should do anything, including good and important things, and for whom blocking anything Obama wanted to do was more important than helping fellow Americans. With Republicans benefitting from that cynical and deceitful strategy they are back in control of Congress. Good luck to the coal miners, autoworkers, steelworkers and others – they’ll need it.

We will now have a dirty old man in the White House as a “role model” for the worst behavior toward women.

And his rhetoric threatens to take apart the signal achievement of America – our mutual respect across faith, national origins, class, race, and counting – an achievement central to the status and future of the very people who voted for hate.

I am worried, crestfallen and embarrassed. What is there to do?

First, I have become a supporter of Supreme Court term limits. Rehnquist spent 34 years at the Court, Stevens 35, Scalia 30 and Thomas has been there 25. Erwin Chemerinsky, widely respected dean at the University of California at Irvine School of Law wrote:

The idea is that each justice would be appointed for an 18-year, non-renewable term. A vacancy thus would occur every two years. Vacancies that occur through resignation or death would be filled by appointing someone to serve the unfinished part of the term.

That way the Court would not be dominated by political decisions made decades ago.

Second, I would not confirm any new justice until there is agreement to reverse the decision that allowed states to monkey with their election rules to disenfranchise voters, and until there is agreement to adopt one of the mathematical rules that precisely measure gerrymandering, the level of favoritism to either party – known as symmetry or wasted voters. Some will object that those decisions are for the justices. Nonsense – the appointments clause is the political check and those decisions put the justices’ prejudices ahead of self-government and assured Republican victories, roles no judge should be playing. Those decisions were partisan, self-serving and should be ruled unconstitutional.

Third, we need to get across to people that refusing to vote because there is someone else we like better is a very bad choice because it has very bad consequences. In a democracy, to live and work together we have to be willing to compromise. It’s part of the deal.

Finally, we need to organize. 2018 is two years away and Congress will be at stake again. True patriots don’t give up.

Republicans have argued since the 19th century that the market solves all problems. Democrats by contrast solve economic problems by investing in the people and the infrastructure they need to get their work done – things business can’t partly because of competitive pressures and partly because they can’t reap the benefits of projects that help the general public.

Because getting things done requires both the president and Congress, split government favors the Republicans. Democrats need both branches and both houses of Congress to pass the laws that make their economic programs possible. Looking back to 1994, there have been only four years in which Republicans did not control at least the Senate.

There is a well-justified need to rebel against the way the economy and the government have been treating you, and the Republicans should bear the brunt of that rebellion.

They insist that investors would use tax breaks to create new jobs in this country. In fact, tax- break beneficiaries can invest the money anywhere. So when Republicans give wealthy businessmen more money, we just get the risk. Their friends get tax breaks; workers get laid off. Their friends close factories; workers look for jobs. Their friends freeze wages; workers look for second and third jobs just to keep going. Their friends downsize for efficiency, leaving workers unemployed, unhappy, and looking for a way to earn a living.

The economy is organized for the guys on top. Dealing with it, making America truly great for all of us, takes more than the Republican nostrum of lowering taxes. Businesses invest where they find markets, workers, infrastructure, and where they’re attracted by the comfort or the cultural life for themselves and those they want to hire. Taxes have little to do with it.

That’s why Obama’s and Hillary’s investment in infrastructure and emerging industries is a better deal to create jobs and opportunities for everybody. There are many reasons to invest in America – unless we let it fall apart, let our infrastructure crumble, and don’t keep it up to date.

Whether Trump understands real estate, where he’s managed to lose lots of other people’s money, Trump clearly doesn’t understand the economy. The old trope about taxes won’t grow the economy. And his promises are cynical because people won’t invest in outdated, high cost, low return industries when there are better opportunities, no matter how much he yells about it.

Which gets back to something else Trump doesn’t understand. Government needs to work on shifting the risk, to make it easier for the vast majority of Americans to find new sources of income, if necessary to move where the jobs are, on more than a hope and prayer of avoiding homelessness. That’s not in the big generalities that so-and-so will fix things. That’s in the details. You work on those; you study those; the job isn’t all in the bluster.

We’ve had enough of Republicans blocking every effort to build the economy, protect its workers and take care of all the people. It’s time for a smart rebellion – not a wild swing with eyes closed.